


What If It Weren't

by verushka70



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pre-Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verushka70/pseuds/verushka70
Summary: Walt stands awkwardly in the doorway. Martha looks at Henry with a strange wisdom in her eyes, and raises a hand to stroke his cheek.Suddenly Henry knows: she knows.
Relationships: Martha Longmire/Walt Longmire, Martha Longmire/Walt Longmire/Henry Standing Bear, Walt Longmire/Henry Standing Bear
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	What If It Weren't

When Martha first extends a hand across her kitchen table to Henry’s, he thinks it's pity or some weird kind of baton passing, like between relay runners. Henry was first; now there is Martha. Walt stands awkwardly in the doorway, literally with his hat in his hand. Martha looks at Henry with a strange wisdom in her eyes and raises a hand to stroke his cheek. 

Suddenly Henry knows: she _knows_.

He closes his eyes against the realization, but her hand firms against his cheek, cradling his jaw. He leans into the comfort, however fleeting. Walt clears his throat; it is the only sound. Henry opens his eyes and looks at Walt, who clears his throat once more before speaking. When he does, his voice is gravel.

“I didn't tell her. She guessed.”

Henry's gaze shifts to Martha. She nods slowly, then speaks carefully. “I can see why you wouldn't have told me.”

“He is a deputy, Martha,” Henry says, his voice tight, pulling his cheek out of her hand, which drops to grasp his hand firmly.

“I know, Henry,” she nods. “It's just – I want you to know, it's all right. Everything is all right, here, between us three, under this roof.”

“It is all in the past, anyway,” Henry admits. He hopes his voice isn't sad or shaking the way it feels like it is, inside his head and body. 

Because the want – the _want_ – there is a reason he hasn't seen much of Walt and vice versa since he came back. None of this is all right. Walt would never – and Henry would rebuff him if he did – but desire is a wild horse still there between them. Henry wants Walt. Every way they had before. He doesn't need to see Walt to know it, to feel it – nor does Walt need to see Henry to know it's still there. Of this, Henry is certain.

“What if it weren't?” Martha asks softly.

Henry jerks his hands out of hers and stands up suddenly from the kitchen table, almost upsetting the chair he was sitting in. This is so unexpected, Henry immediately discounts it. Suddenly, he not only disbelieves, he's enraged. Walt is frozen in the doorway.

“I am not an exotic present for your wife to open,” Henry growls at Walt, eyes flashing at Martha.

Walt shakes his head vehemently, but doesn't speak as quickly as Martha. 

“I would _never_ think that.” She shakes her head emphatically, looks at Walt, then at Henry, her gaze firm, her eyes wiser than he expected. “But I know he loves you. If he does, it’s for good reason. And you obviously love him. I'm in his life now. I want him to be happy.” 

She lifts one shoulder slightly, shyly; her expression is compassionate, afraid, questioning, uncertain – though towards him or Walt or both, Henry isn’t sure. But he thinks it is a most eloquent illustration of this impossible situation. 

Suddenly Henry sees that beneath Walt's tense exterior, a kind of terror lurks under his skin. 

“Oh,” Henry says, at a loss now. With no cues from Walt, and no idea where Martha is going with this, he has no idea what to say or do. So he turns away, to try to compose himself. 

“I can't come between you two,” Martha sighs to his back. Now Henry hears the tinge of sadness in her voice. “It was clear he was. . . pining. I thought it was for an old girlfriend.” She takes a deep breath. “Despite him talking about nothing but you since you came back, he never sees you. You rarely come see him. When you do, it's weird, although you're both clearly overjoyed to see each other. Then he broods for days after. Nothing gets him out those funks. I love my husband. I want him to be happy. So I put two and two together, I guessed, I asked, and he told me.” 

Of course Walt did. He may hold his cards close to his chest, but he will lay them down for those he loves. While turned away from her, as she began to speak, Henry schooled his expression into something calm. Used every de-escalation trick he knows, on himself. 

Everything Martha just said completely undoes that.

Henry swings around. “Is that true?” he asks Walt. Walt grips his hat tighter, but nods stiffly, twice exactly.

“What are you saying?” Henry looks at Martha, praying there is not even a thread of hope in his voice. 

“He wouldn't ask. You know how he is,” she shrugs, looking up at Henry. Now her raw fear at losing her husband is apparent, even more apparent than the terror Walt hides. With a small smile and another slight lift of her shoulder Martha says, “I just want to be included.”

Henry stares at her a long, speechless moment. His heart suddenly pounds hard and fast in his chest. Then he slams out of the kitchen, through the house, onto their porch. He grips the banister and wishes it were a roof he could throw himself off. He closes his eyes, his grip on the banister tightening, because this – this – 

This has never been on his radar. Of course he knew in the abstract that things like this happen, knows people do things like this; he's been around the world, seen a lot – far too much of some things. This is not one of them, however. Sure, on the Rez, some women knowingly share the same man (and plenty do so unknowingly). But this is completely different. 

For himself it is either Walt, or someone else. The idea of having Walt _with_ someone else, with Walt's _wife_ – the equation does not compute. Henry closes his eyes, shakes his head, swears several times under his breath, kicks the porch rail. He goes back into the house to the kitchen. 

Walt and Martha are frozen exactly where they were, both clearly hanging on his reply. Henry looks at Walt, who still stands there, eyes hooded, mouth a firm, straight line. The corners of his mouth just begin to turn down, as if he knew it would go this way, knew that Henry would refuse. 

“Martha, may I speak with Walt for a moment alone, please?” Henry asks tightly.

“It wasn't his idea, Henry,” she says, a sad edge to her voice, coupled strangely with undernotes of stubbornness and defiance. “Don't blame him for it.”

Henry takes a slow breath in. “All right. That is good to know. But, may I?”

“Of course. I expect you have a lot to talk about,” she replies. Suddenly it sounds like she's been pushing Walt to confront this for who knows how long. Because of course she has. Because she knows Walt, almost as well as Henry does. Maybe better, in different ways.

“Martha, I–” Walts voice is low, and it cracks.

“Oh, just go with him, Walt! You two need to _talk_ ,” Martha exclaims. The ordinary wifely exasperation in her voice somehow grounds Henry.

“Walter?” Henry asks quietly.

Walt's expression hardens, then, clearly expecting the worst. “The porch.” 

“The living room is fine,” Henry growls, all too aware Martha has every right to listen. He would actually like her to hear this anyway.

''The porch,” Walt grits out.

“All right, the porch,” Henry agrees tensely, turning to walk back through the house to the porch, not even checking to see if Walt follows him, though he soon hears Walt's boots behind him.

“No fighting,” Martha calls after them both. Henry unwillingly smiles.

On the porch, he turns away from Walt before he speaks. His heart has not raced like this in Walt's presence for some time, but it is not the same way, and not the same reason.

“Do you even,” he begins, before his voice begins to shake – with anger, with sorrow, with fear – “know what you are asking?”

Walt clears his throat and won’t look at Henry. “ _I'm_ not asking,” he mutters to the porch rail. “I wouldn't. . . she's my wife now, Henry.” He takes a deep breath. “What should I have done? Lie?”

“Of course not,” Henry sighs. He doesn't turn around, though.

Walt is silent. Henry's mind races but can not settle on one specific thought. Finally one clear concept emerges. “This is. . . dangerous, Walt. I am not sure you or Martha see that.”

Walt sighs. “Dangerous? Yeah. I see that.” 

But it doesn't sound like the full gravity of the situation has impressed itself on him, which irritates Henry, and he turns to Walt. 

“Have you considered what it will be like for us to be together for the first time in . . .” he trails off, then continues, rushed, “in front of Martha? _With_ her?”

Walt's mouth falls open a little. Even at their distance, Henry thinks he feels sudden warmth radiate from Walt's cheeks as it truly dawns on him what doing all that he and Henry do, did, in front of Martha, would be like. With her _participating_ , even. . . though that’s so bizarre a thought, Henry can’t picture it.

“That is what I thought,” he sighs. He turns away from Walt again. “I have no right to request anything–” he begins.

“You have every right,” Walt growls. Henry shakes his head. 

“No, I do not. What we had is. . . past. An objective third party would say it should not be. . . rekindled,” Henry says carefully, “under these circumstances.” He turns to face Walt again. “Right now, I have your friendship, if. . . nothing else except past memories. You are my oldest friend.” Henry gulps and swallows. “And I think I have Martha's friendship. 

“But if this does not go well. . . if the. . . foreseeable should happen, I will lose both my friends and the person I love most in the world.” He clears his throat and watches Walt's expression solidify into grim. He does not say _I will have no one. . . but Grandmother._ “Have you considered that? Either of you?”

Walt locks his jaw. Henry can just barely see the muscle there, twitching and clenching by the light coming through the living room windows.

“No, you have not,” Henry sighs and passes a hand over his face and into his hair. “Walt, I–”

“I understand, Henry,” Walt says softly now. “I'm sorry.”

Henry takes a step closer to Walt. “Martha is lovely. It is not her. Or you. It is the – situation.” 

Walt shifts on his feet; it brings them slightly closer. Henry smells the familiar scents of Walt he has come to know over the years – the faint scent of Walt's aftershave, his deodorant, the warm smell of skin and soap and cotton and gun oil–

“I am sorry.” Henry backs away. “Being with you with a. . . spectator, even Martha, is. . . unthinkable.” He goes back in the house, to the kitchen, to Martha.

“I thank you for the invitation, Martha,” Henry says without looking at her. He swiftly takes his jacket off the back of the kitchen chair where it hangs, almost upsetting it again, and shoulders into it.

“Henry–” she says, startled, rising from the table.

“It is simply not possible at this time,” he finishes shortly. “I hope you will understand. Please do not think it means I would engage in. . . anything with Walt behind your back. I would not.”

Martha catches his sleeve as he turns to go. “But he–”

“Martha,” Henry finally looks at her. “He loves you. He is your husband. Talk to him.” He hesitates. “Or do not talk to him. Sometimes talking to Walt only makes things worse.”

“He loves you,” she says, searching his face.

This time he can not stop the bitterness in his voice. “He has never said that.”

“He has barely said it to me, Henry,” she replies softly, adding, “you know as well as I do, it's in what he _does_. He would move heaven and earth for you. You must know that.”

Henry tugs his arm out of her gentle grasp. “It would be more accurate to say, ‘there was a time when he would have moved heaven and earth for me’.” He shrugs, tries for bravado, fails. “That time is past. I accept that. Now he would do it for you. I accept that as well.”

He turns to go and walks through the house, out the front door and past Walt on the porch. Walt has apparently not moved.

“I'm sorry, Henry,” Walt says quietly, but Henry keeps moving, quickly trotting down the stairs.

“I accept your apology,” Henry says as he continues down the stairs and out to his truck.

Right about now he thinks how good a twelve pack of cold beer would be. . . and thinks he'd better avoid it.

* * *

Two nights later, they both stand on Walt's porch, a beer in each of their hands, Henry's untouched. They look out at the open landscape instead of at each other. Martha is at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. Henry clears his throat.

“If I am going to –”

"We," Walt interrupts quietly. "Not you. _We._ " 

He continues looking out at the view from the cabin, squinting as if to see if there are elk wandering through, far off. The knot in the pit of Henry's stomach loosens somewhat. Henry takes a deep breath and begins again. 

"If we are going to do this, Walt, I must have my own relationship with Martha,” Henry finally says softly, still looking out and away from Walt.

“You're nobody's fifth wheel,” Walt murmurs, still not looking at him. 

“That is not the point,” Henry replies. Now he looks at Walt. “We all come at this as equals in the eyes of each other. Or it can not work.”

Walt nods, agreeing, and finally looks at Henry, no longer squinting into the bright sun, at the verdant green of the landscape, and the clear blue of the sky. The fear in the tight line of Walt's mouth softens Henry's stiff, guarded posture. It is the first real indication Henry has seen that Walt is terrified, too. There was never any doubt that the determination was Martha's, with Walt hesitantly going along because he had no idea how to resolve this unprecedented situation once it was out in the open. 

But the depth of Walt's fear was not apparent while Henry focused on his own changed place in Walt's world with Martha. Henry is terrified too, terrified that even if he is allowed to have Walt again, now, he will ultimately lose him because Walt will naturally choose Martha over him when the chips are down. It had never occurred to Henry that Walt might fear that Martha would choose Henry. 

"I would take myself away," Henry whispers. "I would take myself away from you both, before I let anything happen to you and Martha. In this."

"Don't," Walt says, swinging his gaze away. He looks at the floor, then takes a long swig of beer before speaking again. "Don't take yourself away again." He looks at the floor of the porch again and shakes his head. 

"You're back," Walt says so low Henry leans closer to hear it. He taps his chest over his heart with a rough finger. "Want you to–” Walt clears his throat, still looking down, and rephrases. " _Need_ you to stay. Here.” He taps his heart again. You can–” he gestures circularly with his beer, encompassing, them, the world, this _thing_. Walt continues. "– go anywhere, do anything – you know that. But here–” He taps his heart again. "Need you here," he finishes in a whisper, barely audible.

Henry's throat constricts with emotion even as the tightness of his entire body relaxes gratefully and longingly at Walt's words. He swallows a few times before speaking.

"I never left," Henry murmurs, hoping it does not sound like an accusation that it was Walt who did. He clarifies softly. "Geographically, yes, I left,” Henry amends. “But not. . . not in my heart."

Walt, normally unfailingly taciturn, looks up at him. His brimming eyes and the relief on his face stun Henry for a moment. Walt emphatically shakes his head. "Not in mine, either. Martha didn't replace you, there." He uncharacteristically swipes at one eye before looking away again, out at the world that can never know. "She. . . she joined you," he admits. A wry, half-sad smile ghosts across his lips. 

Henry's heart thuds with a rush of warmth through his chest. He is silent a moment, looking at Walt before he too looks away. . . out at the world that can never know, would never, he thinks, understand – not merely the combination of the three of them, but the combination of their cultures, their races. The Rez, Henry briefly thinks unwillingly, would not approve.

Along with the rush of warmth, though, a soothing relief washes over Henry. He never left – not just in his own thoughts, but in Walt's too. Maybe this could work. Maybe it actually _could_. The possibility is dizzying, terrifying – no longer in a fearful prediction of disaster and loss, but the sudden, vertiginous opening up of possibilities. It’s oddly exhilarating. _The heart expands,_ Henry thinks. 

"That is. . . good," Henry nods. ‘Good’ seems absurd understatement. But Walt knows him, will understand his understatement; does. Henry sighs deeply, as from a narrow escape. "I should have written, Walt. I am sorry."

Walt's gaze swivels back to him. A slight hopeful smile dawns on Walt's face as he shakes his head. "You didn't need to. _Don't_ need to," he tells Henry simply. "Ever." He swallows, his expression relaxing. "But I should've, too."

**Author's Note:**

> 2 Feb 2021 ETA:  
> Oh ffs, I realized I fucked up the italics at the very end. It was supposed to be just the word "Don't" in "Don't need to." It ended up being from "Don't" to the end of the fic. *facepalm* Fixed it. Sigh!
> 
> 16 January 2021 ETA:  
> Fixed the loss of italics (in moving the fic to AO3).
> 
> I've also been totally remiss by failing to note that Henry's line "I am not an exotic present for your wife to open" paraphrases a song lyric from "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" -- "I'm not a present for your friends to open" -- written by Bernie Taupin for the title track of Elton John's album of the same name. 
> 
> Original end note: From time to time I go through my cloud- and hard-drive-space and look at my WIPs and sigh, as stuck as I was when I stopped working on them. But on rare occasions, I suddenly come up with an ending that eluded me for months (years...). This was one of those times.  
> Not beta-ed; all errors are mine. (If you want to beta, LMK in the comments. Thank you kindly!)


End file.
